God and the Welfare State - Substitutes or Complements? An Experimental Test of the Effect of Belief in God's Control.

Gilad Be’Ery,Pazit Ben-Nun Bloom

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0128858

Abstract

Belief in God’s control of the world is common to many of the world’s religions, but there are conflicting predictions regarding its role in shaping attitudes toward the welfare state. While the devout are expected to support pro-social values like helping others, and thus might be supportive of the welfare state, the possibility of taking action is undermined by the belief in God’s absolute control over world affairs and in a morally perfect providence, who is responsible for the fates of individuals. As the literature provides mixed results on this question, this study examines the role of belief in God’s control on welfare attitudes using three priming experiments and two priming tasks, carried out with a design that is both cross-cultural (US vs. Israel) and cross-religious tradition (Judaism vs. Catholicism). We find evidence that, largely, belief in God’s control increases support for income redistribution among Israeli Jews (study 1), American Jews (study 2), and American Catholics (study 3). The findings suggest that the traditional and common political gap between the economic left and the religious, based on the evaluation that religious beliefs lead to conservative economic preferences, may be overstated.

Highlights

Rabbi Meir used to say: The critic [of Judaism] may bring against you the argument, “If your God loves the poor, why does he not support them?”If so, answer him, “So that through them we may be saved from the punishment of Gehinnom.”—Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Baba Bathra, Folio 10a, Soncino EditionPLOS ONE | DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0128858 June 10, 2015God and the Welfare State - The Effect of Belief in God's ControlRabbi Meir, a Jewish sage of the second century (A.D.), here presents an imagined argument with “the critic,” regarding the theological basis of the religious commandment of charity
We explore conflicting theoretical expectations concerning the effect of a specific religious belief: belief in God’s control over the world (BGC)
A total of 113 Israeli Jews participated in the study: 35 political science undergraduates attending The Hebrew University of Jerusalem were recruited for partial course credit and an additional 52 participants were voluntarily recruited utilizing a “snowball” method, with a Qualtrics link distributed to members of the first author’s social network, which mostly consisted of religious individuals who are affiliated with the Israeli version of Modern Orthodox Judaism

Summary

Introduction

Rabbi Meir used to say: The critic [of Judaism] may bring against you the argument, “If your God loves the poor, why does he not support them?”. Rabbi Meir, a Jewish sage of the second century (A.D.), here presents an imagined argument with “the critic,” regarding the theological basis of the religious commandment of charity. In a world controlled by God, an act of charity could be interpreted as an act of heresy. On the one hand, according to the major religious traditions centered around the idea of God, He expects the devout to strive for moral excellence, and to actively build a morally decent society. According to the same traditions, God is a key actor in world affairs, with His morally perfect providence being responsible for the fate of individuals. The belief in God’s control leads to antithetical conclusions: human action is viewed as very important, while at the same time it is undermined by the belief in the absolute control of God over world affairs

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